


Shots, Screams, and a Straight Flush

by BravoWriters



Category: Bravo Team (RvB OC)
Genre: Drunken Shenanigans, Gen, No one knows how to play cards, OC TL canon compliant, Poker Night, Traumatizing our teammates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-20
Updated: 2018-07-20
Packaged: 2019-06-13 06:57:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15358788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BravoWriters/pseuds/BravoWriters
Summary: Poor Vermont doesn't know what he's getting into. Thirty folds. M argues. Mitch loses her shirt, and the game.





	Shots, Screams, and a Straight Flush

MI: _Poker night tonight in the rec room._  
WV: _BYOB or is that on you?_  
MI: _Either works. Do you trust my choice in alcohol?_  
MS: _I wouldn’t._  
VT: _What time should I be there?_  
MI: _I can still uninvite you, Miss._  
MS: _Open invite is open invite._  
WV: _Save the animosity for the poker table, fellas._  
MI: _I’m your team captain, I can order you out._  
MS: _You won’t._  
VT: _I’m so confused._  
WV: _I’m with Miss on this one._  
MI: _NOBODY ELSE AGREE WITH MISS_  
WV: _WHY ARE WE YELLING_  
MA: _Hey does anyone in this thread smoke weed?_

Poker night began officially at 1900, which West did eventually relay to Vermont. M got there early to get a head start on drinking and to take the chair she liked best. “Why can’t I ever get you to show up this early for training?” Mitch asked, counting out chips.

“Because showing up early to poker night gets me whiskey and the chair with wheels,” said M, sliding her aviators on. “And showing up early to training gets me strained calves.”

“They wouldn’t strain so easily if you stretched more,” said Miss. “Or if you bothered running laps more than once a year.”

“Oh, sure, rub it in, why don’t you? Ooh, I’m Mississippi, I have functioning leg muscles and a bad attitude.”

Mitch snorted. “She’s got you there, Miss.”

West and Vermont showed up together, probably because Vermont looked like he was on the verge of bolting without a handler. M sympathized; weathering the hurricane of Bravo team recreation was no easy task even for someone who’d been doing it for a while. Vermont was new to the team and new to the nonsense, and this was his first poker night. West immediately picked the spot next to M and spun her chair around to straddle it.

“Where’s Flyboy?” she asked M.

“On his way, I think.” She messaged him quickly: _almost here?_ He replied right away but she frowned at her datapad. “Okay, I really don’t know. I taught him how to use emojis recently but I don’t think he gets it yet.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I asked if he was on his way and he sent eggplant, eggplant, birthday cake, and the cat face with heart eyes. What the fuck does that mean?”

“I can think of a couple of things,” said West with a grin. “None of them answer the question you asked, though.”

“Can I get another glass of whiskey?” she asked Mitch loudly. “I have a feeling I’m gonna need it.”

It only took Thirty another few minutes to arrive and he sat on M’s other side, next to Miss. “So, um,” Vermont said, flushed up to his ears. Mitch poured him a glass of vodka. “How– how does this work?”

“He means, is it strip poker?” West asked, and Vermont stared firmly at the table.

“It can be,” said Mitch, and Thirty blushed too. “You can either give up chips or an article of clothing if someone calls your bluff.”

“So for example,” said M, “Mitch has never finished a game of poker with her shirt on in all her life, even if it’s not _supposed_ to be strip poker. Thirty will give up all his chips and fold four rounds later so he can escape all of us.”

“Because M made him come,” added West.

“She didn’t make me,” said Thirty.

“Thirty does everything M tells him.”

“He does not! And I don’t order him around!”

“She does,” West said to Vermont. “He’s into it. And her.”

Thirty only blushed harder and M scowled, and Mitch set to shuffling. On her first attempt at flipping the cards back up into a bridge, her grip slipped and the cards flew halfway across the table. “Auspicious beginning,” she said, gathering them back up. “Miss, you shuffle.” He did, albeit with a roll of his eyes, and then gave the deck back to Mitch to deal.

“No AI,” she said as she dealt as quick and elegantly as any casino owner in the Vegas quadrant. “Not that they’re ever much use anyway, but might as well keep things fair.” Vermont tried to drink his vodka but grimaced at the taste and set the glass down.

“I don’t think I know how to play,” Thirty said, peeking at his cards.

“You’ll pick it up,” said Mitch, waving her hand. “Our games usually end with… who won last time?”

“No one wins on Bravo team poker night,” said West, frowning at her hand. “No one ever wins. We never play until someone wins. You get drunk and Miss carts you off to bed, and then M and I try and play blackjack before we remember we don’t know how to play blackjack and resort to slapjack instead. And no one wins at slapjack, so we both just go home.”

“Now _that_ sounds like the Bravo team I know and occasionally tolerate,” said Miss. M’s aviators were mirrored and he could see her cards reflected in them, but didn’t tell her. She’d figure it out. Or she wouldn’t. Either way.

“Everyone bet,” said Mitch. She threw in one chip, and M raised to two so she added another to match. Thirty and Vermont declined to bet, Miss threw in two chips, and West tossed in fourteen cents. “Kinda meant with chips, West.”

“You didn’t say we had to use chips.”

“You… alright. Whatever.”

“What’s the exchange rate?” asked M. “Is fourteen cents equivalent to two chips? Or did she raise?”

“Actually I’m gonna fold,” said West. “You can keep the fourteen cents.”

Mitch sighed and finished her glass, poured herself another, and turned over the flop– seven, Jack, eight. “All clubs. You shuffled this, right, Miss?”

“I know how to shuffle cards, Mitch. I did the best I could after you threw them all over the table.”

M raised her bet and Mitch matched, and she flipped the turn– Jack of hearts. “I hate the Jack,” West said, sorting her chips into indiscernible piles. “He looks creepy.”

“Nah, look,” said M. “He’s got all those hearts. It’s romantic.”

“Look at his face! That’s a black market organ harvester if ever I’ve seen one.”

Mitch raised, M matched, and they flipped the river, Jack of spades. West shivered. “You have been called,” Mitch said to M. 

M showed her cards– seven of diamonds, seven of spades. “Full house!”

Mitch grinned, flipped her hand– Jack of diamonds, eight of hearts. “Jacks beat sevens.”

“No, you count the pair in a full house. Jacks beat eights.”

“You absolutely do not count the pair. You count the triplet, and I have three Jacks.”

_“Mitch we’ve played so many games I think I know–”_

_“M I GUARANTEE YOU DO NOT FUCKING COUNT THE PAIR–”_

Everyone else tossed their hand in so that Miss could reshuffle. He noticed that Thirty held the nine and ten of clubs. “Did you have a straight flush?”

“I guess,” said Thirty.

“You could’ve won this hand, nothing beats a straight flush, they’re very uncommon. Why didn’t you bet?”

He shot a quick glance between Mitch and M. “I guess I don’t want anyone yelling at me?”

Miss sighed, gathered up the cards. “That’s fair.”

Vermont looked up the rules quickly and determined that, indeed, in a full house, the triplet counts above the pair. M folded her arms sulkily. “This isn’t how I imagined things unfolding,” he said quietly, and West laughed loud.

“Un **fold** ing! You clever bastard!”

He shrunk back in his seat, cheeks red. “I didn’t mean…”

She clapped him on the back. “Accidental puns are the best kind.” He still looked torn between mortified and furious at the pun, and M sympathized. When West says _good joke,_ it should only rarely be taken as a compliment.

Five rounds later and the table was considerably more raucous. Mitch’s shirt was abandoned and so was Thirty’s seat; he bet all his chips on a pair of threes and used that as an excuse to say thanks for inviting me, see you all later. M kicked her feet up on the table and lit a cigar.

“Are you kidding me?” said Mitch. “You’re gonna smoke in front of your team’s _field medic?”_

“Relax,” said M around the cigar. West had to admire her dedication to the aesthetic. “Non-toxic, completely. Check the box.” She tossed the tin to Mitch, who frowned at it but begrudgingly admitted there wouldn’t be any ill effects.

“You still look incredibly stupid,” she said, and M shrugged.

During the next hand, West frowned at her hand but threw eight chips into the ante and successfully scared away everyone else from betting. “Jesus,” said Miss. “What do you have, a pair of aces?”

She flipped her cards– two Jokers. “Yahtzee!”

“I don’t think that’s in the rulebook,” said Vermont, frowning at his datapad. M laughed and Mitch furrowed her brow.

“I counted the cards before we started and we only had fifty-two. Where did you get two Jokers?” West shrugged but collected the pot.

West had never played a hand stronger than a two pair in all her life but she amassed by far the largest pile of loot: fifty-eight chips, twelve credits and eighty-three cents, and two arcade tokens.

“Where the fuck did you get Chuck E Cheese tokens?” asked M.

“What’s Chuck E Cheese?”

Mitch drained a glass for every sip Vermont took, grimacing all the while. “Y’know,” said Mitch with her wide smile, “I _love_ that we do this.”

“Ah jeez,” said West. “Drunk Mitch is out to play.”

Miss sighed. “I’m about out of chips anyway and absolutely fucking _none_ of you are seeing me naked.”

“Except _me,”_ said Mitch, and Vermont choked on his drink.

“Great!” said M loudly. “Shut up!”

West threw her cards down. _“You said it was just a business relationship!”_

“See, Miss has this _adorable_ cloud of freckles on his–”

“GREAT!” said M, even louder. “SHUT THE FUCK UP!”

“And it _is_ business,” Mitch said to West. “We’re _totally_ gettin’ down to business.”

“Time to go,” said Miss, admirably stone-faced. “Better get some sleep. Mitch has a meeting in the morning.”

“That sucks,” said West.

“And since you’re her second in command, you’ll have to be there too.”

West groaned. “Why can’t I just suck at my job like M does?”

_“Oh,_ and you made fun of me for sucking dick at the bottom of the Bravo leaderboard! Guess who gets to sleep in, you bastard!”

West pointed at M with mock outrage. “I’ll demote you!”

M threw a chip at her but she dodged and it cracked Vermont in the temple. “Oh, shit! Sorry, man.”

He rubbed his head. “It’s, um, it’s okay…”

“Good night,” Miss said, louder to be heard over the chaos. “Mitch would want me to tell you all to drink plenty of water.”

M made a raspberry noise and gave him a thumbs down, but stubbed out her cigar and tossed her cards back on the table. She had a shit hand anyway. “Poker sucks with three people. I’m out. Places to be.”

“Let me guess,” said West. “It has to do with eggplant, eggplant, heart eyes.”

“Don’t you know it.” She took her aviators off and only then realized how reflective they were. “Goddamn. That’s absolutely suboptimal.” She left them on the table and threw a loose salute at everyone before skipping out. Miss led Mitch out and West watched them go, turned to Vermont.

“So?” she asked. “What did you think of poker night?”

He swallowed. “I– I think I know less about poker than I did when I started,” he said. “And, um, things got… loud.”

“Yeah,” she said with a broad grin. “Welcome to Bravo.”


End file.
